African countries’ use of mobile applications examined in new report

Internet company Opera published a new report entitled State of the Mobile Web Africa 2016. The report examines the opportunities and challenges related to the use of mobile applications in Africa. Among the opportunities are the increase in data usage; more, cheaper smartphones; growing appetite for media-rich websites and applications; and more local, relevant content. On the other end of the spectrum, challenges to the use of mobile applications are the high data costs; background ‘data theft’; limited network capacity; and the increase in page sizes. South Africa heads the list of mobile app usage, followed by Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda.